A White House representative announced that the agency is developing a "consistent and safe international travel policy" under which foreign citizens coming to the US will have to prove they have completed vaccination, except in some special cases.
The plan will be implemented when the country lifts restrictions on international travel. It is unclear when those restrictions will be eased, as the US faces a new outbreak of cases caused by the Delta variant.
Illustration: CNN.
In the first two weeks of August, the US recorded more than 1.5 million new cases, more than three times the number of new cases in the second and third countries on this list, Iran and India. The US's seven-day average of new cases reached 135,000, far exceeding any other country.
After a sharp decline at the beginning of the year, Covid-19 cases are rising again due to a somewhat slow vaccination progress.
The US is trying to convince millions of eligible people to get vaccinated as soon as possible. Currently, about 70% of adults in the US have received at least one dose of vaccine.
In addition, the US government recommends that Americans get a booster shot after receiving the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine regimen to combat the Delta variant that is spreading rapidly across the country.
A vaccination site in the South Bronx, New York, USA (photo: New York Times).
The booster vaccination policy will depend on the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of additional doses.
Nursing home residents and health care workers are likely to be the first to receive booster shots, as early as September. The next group to get them will be older adults who received their second shot in late 2020.
Under the plan, Americans will receive the same vaccine as the ones they received previously.
